In software development practice, testing accounts for as
much as 50% of the total development effort. It is therefore
imperative to reduce the cost and improve the effectiveness of
software testing by automating the testing process. In the past
decades, a great amount of research effort has been spent on
automatic test case generation, automatic test oracles, etc. Test
automation is also becoming an important part of software
testing practice.
The workshop is the 11th edition of the successful AST workshops
held at ICSE conferences. It will provide
researchers and practitioners with a forum for exchanging
ideas, experiences, understanding of the problems, visions
for the future, and promising solutions to the problems. The
workshop will also provide a platform for researchers and
developers of testing tools to work together to identify the
problems in the theory and practice of software test
automation and to set an agenda and lay the foundation for
future development.

TOPICS OF INTEREST
The workshop focuses on bridging the gap between the
theory and practice of software test automation.
The topics cover all aspects related to software test automation. In
particular, papers on the following topics are covered, but
are not limited to:
1)
Methodology:
Software test automation in the context of
various software development methodologies.
2)
Technology
: Automation of various test techniques and
methods for testing related activities, as well as for testing
various types of software applications.
3)
Tools and environments:
Issues in the development,
operation, maintenance and evolution of software testing
tools and environments, and their integration and inter
-
operation with other types of software development and
maintenance tools and runtime support env
ironments and platforms.
4)
Experiments, empirical studies and experience reports
:
Experiments, empirical studies of software test automation,
as well as reports on real experiences in using automated
testing techniques, methods and tools in industry.
5)
Identification of problems
and visions of the future:
The identification of problems that hamper wider adoption of
automated test techniques, methods and tools and the
analysis and specification of the requirements on automated
software testing.

The AST 2016 workshop focuses on a special topic on scalability
of test automation.

Submissions on this topic are
especially encouraged, but papers on other topics are also
welcome.

CHARETTE DISCUSSIONS
The workshop continues the successful charette
discussions of the previous years. This year, the topic of
the charette discussion sessions will focus on the
topic of scalability of test automation.

INDUSTRIAL CASE STUDIES
There will also be an Industrial Case Studies session at
the workshop, with presentations reporting the real state
of the practice in automation of software testing. Test
practitioners are especially encouraged to contribute their
experiences and insights on test automation. Topics for
this session include, but are not limited to, the following:
new tools, new best practices, process innovations related
to test automation, gaps in existing vendor toolsets, ideas
and visions for near
-
term research work.

SUBMISSIONS
Two types of submissions are invited: regular papers and industrial
case study papers.
The former presents research in the area of software test automation,
while the latter presents practical applications of test
automation.
Both types of papers are limited to 7 pages
in ACM Conference Proceedings Format.
All papers submitted to the workshop must be
unpublished original work and
should not be under
review or submitted elsewhere while being under
consideration.
All submissions must be in English and
in PDF format
through online upload to the workshop submission
website
at the following URL:
http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=AST2016
All submissions
will be reviewed by three PC members.
Regular papers will be judged on the basis of their
clarity, relevance, originality, and contribution. Case
study papers will be judged on the basis of their clarity,
relevance, and interest to the workshop participants.

PUBLICATION OF PAPERS

The accepted workshop papers
including both regular
and case study papers
will be published in the AST 2016
Proceedings and included
in the IEEE and AC MDigital Libraries.
Authors of accepted papers are required to register for
the workshop and present the paper at the workshop in
order for the paper to be included in the proceedings and
the Digital Library.